


The Most Precious

by LemonNinjaa



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alcohol, Comfort, Existential Crisis, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-15
Updated: 2016-09-15
Packaged: 2018-08-15 03:31:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8040826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LemonNinjaa/pseuds/LemonNinjaa
Summary: Separately, existential crises aren't fun and alcohol is great, but alcohol-fueled existential crises are terrible. Phil's pretty amazing, though.





	The Most Precious

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chunchun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chunchun/gifts).



> I know, the end of the summary is lame, but I couldn't resist...

         “It sucks that you can’t come to Louise’s,” Dan said, putting on his shoes.

“I know, it’s been a while since we’ve seen her last, but my mum really wants to have dinner together while she’s in town, so I guess it’s unavoidable. Next time though. Tell her hi for me,” Phil replied, seeing him off.

“Sure. I don’t know when I’ll be back, but I’ll keep you updated. Good luck finishing the editing without my highly-cherished advice,” Dan joked.

“Hey, I mean I can just text you… But also look who’s talking, the one who approached me for ‘editing tips’ in the first place!”

“First of all, rude. Second of all, I’m not even going to answer that because I’m going to be late as it is.” Dan quickly unlocked his phone to text Louise, “ _I’m going to be late, sorry for who I am as a person_.” “Anyway, say hi to your mum for me, hope she’s well!”

“I’ll tell her for you, have fun with Louise!”

\--

Phil pushed up his glasses to rub at the bridge of his nose. He’d been editing his next video for the past two hours non-stop after having dinner with his mum, and he still had to edit in all the sound effects and graphics. His phone vibrated and he decided it was a good time to take a break as he picked it up to unlock it.

_“Omg Louise just brought out the tequila what kind of girls’ night is this?!”_ Dan had texted.

_“???????”_ Phil replied, then got up and headed to the lounge to watch some anime. A reply came quickly.

_“So it’s just me and Louise right, and we were hanging out and Louise is still a bit torn over her life choices and whatnot so I guess she figured that I, the king of existential crisis, am the best one to get utterly smashed with?”_

_“Oh no lol does that mean you’re going to stay the night at hers?”_ Phil asked, wondering if he should stay up just in case Dan comes home a mess.

_“Not sure yet tbh, I’ll let you know? She might want me to get out of her hair at some point lol.”_

_“True ok, have a good time! Make good decisions lmao, I’ll just be here having a quiet night with Buffy,”_ Phil sent back, adding in some appropriate emojis to make sure Dan didn’t misinterpret it as Phil being upset that he was missing out.

Dan only replied with the eyes emoji, a slew of alcoholic drink emojis, and the dancing girl emoji. Phil smiled at Dan’s response before settling in for a nice marathon of one of his favourite shows.

\--

A few episodes later, Phil heard his phone vibrate.

_“What if none of this is real,”_ was all Dan’s text said.

_“?????????”_ _Uh oh_ , Phil thought, knowing where this was going.

_“Maybe this is all just a dream? Descartes said that it was impossible to tell if we were dreaming or actually experiencing reality, that maybe a demon is deceiving us into thinking we’re living all this time but we’re actually not??? How do we know that anyone else is real? How do I even know that I’m real?”_

Phil saw that Dan was still typing, but he replied anyway.

_“Are you okay? Are you having a drunk existential crisis?”_

Phil watched the typing bubble appear, disappear, and then appear again.

_“Maybe?”_

_“…Are you and Louise okay? Have you guys just sprawled into a crisis without me to keep you guys together?”_

_“Louise is great, she’s kind of mumbling to herself but we’re both just sat in front of her TV doing our own thing and getting somewhat intoxicated at the same time… Also I wish you were here.”_

_“Aw, you really do miss me then!”_ Phil teased. _“Do you need me to come get you?”_

_“Nonono I don’t want to leave Louise alone right now. I might still be back later but not sure still.”_

_“That’s okay! Just let me know,”_ Phil texted back, putting two grinning cat emojis.

\--

_“Had to just hold Louise’s hair back while she had some quality time with the toilet… Not thrilled but #friendship amirite… Especially while I’m busy thinking about the inevitability of death,”_ Dan texted sometime later. Phil had been browsing Tumblr, tired of watching things after editing before.

_“That’s love,”_ Phil replied. _“Hope you guys are both okay?”_

_“I think I’m going to put her to bed and then come back,”_ Dan said. _“Having an existential crisis alone in Louise’s flat while she’s passed out isn’t exactly my idea of a fun crisis.”_

_“I think that’s a paradox? When have you ever had fun having a crisis?”_

_“You know what I mean,”_ Dan texted back instantly with the unamused emoji. _“Anyway, see you soon.”_

Phil responded with three random emojis, ending up picking a ghost, a clock, and a walking man.

\--

By the time Phil heard the door open, he had migrated to his bed with his laptop, but was reading a book. Quiet cursing followed a gentle thud.

“Dan?”

“I’m fine! Everything’s fine!” He slurred, speaking a little too loudly.

Phil heard uneven and heavy footsteps, and was about to get up, but Dan appeared in his doorway, leaning against the frame.

“Phil!” He whined a little, drawing out the last letter. “It’s too hot!”

        “Then take off your jumper?”

        “Oh, true.” Dan reached up to grab the back of his jumper before pulling it over his head, but due to his impaired state, it got stuck before it cleared his head.

        “Phil,” he whined again, his voice muffled by his shirt.

The man in question laughed and put his book to one side, moving his laptop to the floor just in case. Dan started mumbling as soon as he heard Phil laugh.

        “What kind of existence is this? Who invented jumpers like this? Why is this even happening? In what universe would I  _ not _ have gotten stuck in this jumper while intoxicated, like come on. Is it possible that no matter what kind of version of me I’d be, I’d still get stuck? Is that a defining feature of my existence?”

        Phil ignored the flash of tummy showing to ease the jumper off of Dan, noting how soft and fluffy his hair was now because of the static electricity. He couldn’t stop himself from ruffling Dan’s hair, to which Dan responded by making an unintelligible noise and throwing himself onto the bed hard enough to bounce a little. Phil settled back into his original position sitting up against the headboard, and Dan stared blankly up at him, right cheek smushed against Phil’s duvet.

“What’s the matter?” Phil asked, even though he already knew.

        “Life is so bizarre; how is it possible that we exist? How do I exist? Out of the millions of choices that all led up to me, why was I the one who came out of it? Like if just one thing was off, Dan Howell wouldn’t exist, or wouldn’t be the same Dan Howell that exists in this world. My family could have been from Rawtenstall too, or maybe America. If my mom hadn’t met my dad then she’d be married to some other man and I’d never have existed. Maybe if I didn’t drop out of law school I’d be a successful lawyer right now, or if I had a cat as a family pet rather than a dog maybe my personality would be different?! There are so many factors that led up to me being who I am today and it’s so scary to think that just one thing could have changed everything?!”

        “That just means you’re special and lucky to exist! We can’t control the conditions of our birth or the environment that we grow up in but I think you did really well for yourself.”

“The passage of time is just too much,” Dan mumbled. “I’m already 25 and it only feels like just yesterday that I was graduating from high school. You’re already 29! You’re almost in your thirties?! We’ve both been making YouTube videos for years?!”

“I mean, thankfully you didn’t just graduate from high school yesterday… Would you rather that I was 29 and you were 18?”

“Of course not, but how are you so okay with this?!”

“I guess I just don’t feel as deeply as you do? I just try not to dwell on things because I know that there’s so much more to come?”

        Dan rolled onto his back, obviously not too comfortable in his original position. Phil found himself drawn to the sight of Dan’s flushed cheeks, making him look warmer and softer than usual. His brown eyes were glassy from the alcohol, and Phil honestly wondered how Dan had managed to cab home without the driver kicking him out for being obviously intoxicated. Dan’s lips were a dark pink, almost as if Louise had put lipstick on him, but Phil knew that he had just been biting nervously at his lips as he often does, because they were more chapped than they were before Dan had left the house. If a stranger had seen Dan at that moment, they probably would have assumed that he had just heavily made out with someone.

Phil poked him with a toe; Dan had been silent for a little too long and Phil knew that if he didn’t talk about it, he’d just spiral further into his crisis and end up lying motionlessly for at least an hour.

“Don’t you ever wonder how time seems to speed up and slow down at will? Like one day what if we all just wake up and everything is totally different, like we’re in our seventies and YouTube is a dinosaur and nothing is the same, like we’ve just suddenly lost years of our lives to the sands of time but we don’t even remember it?”

        “I mean, I figure that’s just an illusion since we’re either doing things that distract us or we’re not doing anything which draws our attention to time? I try to just focus on what I’m doing so I can get the full experience, and even if I forget it later then at least it happened once. And maybe those forgotten moments have changed me as a person, too, but even though I’ve forgotten them, they’re still important.”

        “But maybe time is weird like that because this is all just a simulation, just a mimicry of a reality we could never know because we’ve been trapped in this game…There’s so much we’ve forgotten and there’s so much we’ll still forget in the future, how do we even know who we are?”

        “Does it matter that much if it’s a simulation or not? As long as we’re happy and doing what we want with our lives?”

        "But that means anything I experience could just be a product of my own imagination! Maybe I’m just dreaming and I’ll wake up as a 17 year old and I’ll feel so out of place because I lived a whole lifetime in my sleep but I didn’t actually go anywhere! What even constitutes personal identity? Am I me or am I the combination of all the people I’ve known, or is there a difference between the two? Am I my experiences? Or am I my thoughts about my experiences?”

        “I’m pretty sure that you’re not dreaming right now? And I think a person is all of those things: their experiences, thoughts, and themselves, while being influenced by the people around them. It’s not wrong, it’s just how we are as humans.”

        “But like, there’s so much that means so much but we just never talk about it! What if I don’t want to be influenced by people I know? I don’t want to think that someone is bad because they hang out with bad people? Can people even be bad? And maybe this  _ is _ all a dream, you could be part of the dream, and that’s why you’re telling me I’m dreaming! It only makes sense!” Dan sat up and grabbed Phil’s arm, gazing up at him with wide eyes, desperate to make his point. Phil was appreciating Dan’s hair, which was curling at the edges and sticking to his forehead in places, and he almost missed what Dan said next. “I have to be dreaming right now because there’s no way you really exist, you’re just too good! How is it possible that the universe aligned perfectly for you and I to exist at the same time, for us to have fallen together and fit so perfectly like this, if we’re the product of everything we think and everyone we know… The chances that we turned out so similar even though we grew up so differently and knew all these different people… There’s no way that I’m this lucky because you’re so good and right.” Dan tripped over his words in his haste to get them out, to make Phil understand. 

        Phil startled a little and looked back at Dan’s face, and he was stunned to see Dan tearing up. 

        “Hey, no, don’t cry,” Phil’s voice immediately softened. “I think that no matter what kind of life this is, even if this is a dream or not true reality or anything, in any world that we exist in, you and I will find each other again if we’re not already with each other.”

        Phil wiped away Dan’s tears and pushed his hair out of his face, pulling him close to his chest to comfort him.

        “See, you’re just too good,” Dan wailed, wrapping his arms around Phil’s waist and holding tight. “I don’t want to imagine a parallel universe without you because I bet it could never compare to any universe where we’re together. You’re my favourite person in my life, you know that? I think any version of me would be so glad to have any version of you.”

        “All the versions of me would be so happy to have you, no matter what,” Phil said, smiling softly as he rested his cheek on top of Dan’s head. “You’re the one who knows me the best.”

        “Life is really scary but it’s a little less scary when you’re there,” Dan mumbled into Phil’s shirt, his breath warming Phil’s skin underneath. 

        “I’ll always be here,” Phil promised, pressing a soft kiss into Dan’s hair.

        There was a calm and comfortable silence as Dan pulled himself together. Phil breathed deeply on purpose, knowing that the motion of his chest would calm Dan down further, as he rubbed Dan’s back. 

        “Do you mind if I sleep here tonight,” Dan asked suddenly. “Everything is so scary right now and I don’t want to be alone, and you make it better, and --”

        “Of course,” Phil interrupted, knowing Dan would work himself up again if given the chance. “Do you want to go to bed now?”

        “Not really… But you must be tired from doing stuff today and then listening to me… You can go to sleep if you’re tired, I’ll be okay.”

        “Hey, no, it’s fine, I’m good to stay up for a while. Do you want to watch some Avatar?”

        Dan’s head moved a little bit and Phil saw one of Dan’s red-rimmed eyes, still a little glassy but looking more alert, peer up at him, the other obscured by his hair.

        “That’s a yes, isn’t it,” Phil grinned with his tongue poking out. 

        “Ugh, but moving… But Avatar…” Even as he said it, Dan shifted his weight back so Phil could get up.

        Phil went to his closet (hiding a yawn so Dan wouldn’t feel bad) to get out a pair of comfy pants for Dan to change into, and then they made their way to the lounge. Phil put on the next episode of Avatar that they hadn’t seen yet, while Dan settled onto the couch. They sat close enough for their bodies to touch, but Dan’s knees were up to his chest while Phil had one leg underneath the other. Phil glanced over when he felt Dan lace his fingers into his own, and smiled when he met Dan’s eyes quickly before Dan blushed and looked back at the TV. 

        Midway through the second episode, Phil felt a weight on his shoulder. Carefully looking over without moving his body, he saw that Dan had fallen asleep, still holding his hand.  _ Existential crises are pretty draining, after all _ , Phil thought. Slowly reaching for the remote so that he didn’t jar Dan awake, Phil turned off the TV before letting go of Dan’s hand equally as slowly. He gingerly wrapped his arms around Dan to shift so that they were both lying down, Dan’s head on Phil’s chest, and used one arm to grope around for a blanket to throw over the both of them. 

        Phil pressed a light kiss to Dan’s forehead, then took his glasses off, resting them on the table. He rearranged the blanket to make sure it covered the both of them fully before closing his eyes, letting the soft sound of Dan’s breathing lull him to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Are they physically affectionate platonic buddies? Are they in a budding romantic relationship? Are they in a committed romantic relationship? Who knows. (Referring to this fic, not irl lol.)
> 
> Also, look at me putting my years of studying philosophy to use in a fanfiction lmao... I was gonna add in some Sartre and Nietzsche but it didn't work with how I continued writing the story.
> 
> Okay now I'm gonna ramble a bit about the title:
> 
> My working title was Crisis and Comfort, but I didn't like that very much, and then I thought about The Most Precious. It seemed a little too serious for the content but then I was thinking about how Dan and Phil are each other's precious people (yes, very anime of me) and also the comfort stuff is a precious moment to the both of them (except maybe moreso for Phil because Dan was drunk l m a o). I've been thinking about the title for at least an hour and I'm kind of just done with it lol.


End file.
